Tom,
Right you are! What was I thinking? My biggest gaffe since crediting Bethpage to MacKenzie, but I had the cover of a post midnight post as an excuse. Don't know how I mixed those up. At least I was right in my assessment that the greens really looked functional, rather than the product of any deep thought.
At any rate, I recall C and W writing that Travis did Garden City and spent a career trying to match that success. (Or was it someone else, my memory is getting fuzzy......anyway, I don't get NE much, but when I do, I have a few courses and contacts to see and make use of! I would like to learn more of Travis, and I have only heard great things about Westchester, and this comes from my tour pro friends who normally wouldn't endorse a blind shot, or lack of definition anywhere else.
Geoffrey,
Given the above, I don't know the answer to the modern/old days perception differences either. There is some writing in the St. Andrews yardage book that I find interesting. Basically, it says that the course reflected life at the time. When potato famines, wars swept your countryside every five years or so, and you had seven kids hoping two would survive, life was very uncertain, and the blind shots and bad bounces reflected life. This is tough to say in the middle of a recession, but the economics cycles in this country, health and lifetime standards, etc. in this country have become far more certain, and new courses reflect that. Perhaps a silly example, but if we can now predict the weather with reasonable certainty (rather than watch the sheep) why shouldn't we expect to predict the results of a good or bad golf shot?
In general, most people want there recreation to be easier than their work, and as our job descriptions change to easier physical labor, so too has our recreation, perhaps (those of you who love mountain climbing are excepted, of course) explaining carts, no brainer golf shots, etc. And, as I have expounded on in the past, we have become addicted to the visual, because of TV. So, logical conclusion is modern architecture, no?